Saturday, November 27, 2010

Sarah Palin’s own little Truman Show and the road to the White House

I have no idea if Sarah Palin is gearing up to run for the presidency in 2012. What I think I know is that sometime shortly after (or before?) the 2008 election, it occurred to Ms. Palin that she was sitting on one of the most lucrative franchises ever granted a person who had no reason to expect such an opportunity would ever come her way.

Maybe someone a lot smarter came to lay it out for her or maybe she figured it out for herself. Maybe she had an inkling that things would work out the way they did or maybe it was dumb luck. In any case, no one can deny that her “success,” devoid of anything that could be described as political skill, is something to behold.

We all have unique abilities and qualities and sometimes events conspire to provide just the right environment to help us make the best of what we have to offer. Perfect storms happen and our Miss Sarah is a cork riding atop a wave in the middle of that storm.

The storm to which I refer is the confluence of her personal attributes, the events that made her famous initially and America’s obsession with reality TV.

As if constructed in some sort of Stepford laboratory, she is made for reality television. She is photogenic, she is quirky, she says the darndest things and she makes everybody feel like they, or people they actually know, could succeed on a similar scale. That’s the formula for this brand of media.

At the Republican National Convention in '08, I distinctly remember a delegate gushing on camera that Sarah Palin was just like her sister-in-law. To this women, Palin was accessible but now, under these circumstances, special.

It is the nexus between the common and the extraordinary. It is all about plucking people from the shadows and placing them on a stage that would, under normal circumstances, never be available to them.

How, in reality T.V., ordinary people find themselves in extraordinary circumstanced is beside the point. The fact that they are ordinary but granted a degree of fame is the dynamic that keeps people watching.

Survivor, American Idol, The Bachelor, and so many other shows: these are all about demystifying the world we see on television, which is a proxy for importance, wealth and fame – all the things we are taught to crave. It’s about connecting the ordinary to the extraordinary. And though it is a bit off the argument, it is the same reason that lotteries are so popular – a bridge to the other side. We want to believe it’s possible and we like things that remind us that it might be.

It is often remarked that the more we make fun of Sarah Palin’s intelligence the more popular she becomes with some people. These are the people who don’t want to see her voted off the island, who want to see where the story goes. It’s these people who are living vicariously through the Palin experience. And there are, I suspect, a lot of them.

Just because there is frequently no good reason for the casts of reality shows to be famous, doesn’t mean that people don’t root for them and it doesn’t mean that audiences will be any less resentful when so called elites point out that the anointed don’t deserve the fame. No one likes to have his or her fun spoiled.

Fame for the sake of fame is where we are these days. “Being famous for being famous” is one of the better lines of the age.

The Truman Show is a movie about a man who is initially unaware that he is living in a constructed reality television show, broadcast 24-hours-a-day to billions of people across the globe.

Sarah P. may be aware that the cameras are rolling, but I don’t know that she could have fully anticipated how things would develop, though she has clearly done everything possible to ensure that America keeps watching whether it’s her daughter dancing or her televised travels through Alaska. Whether she constructed the reality she inhabits or it was constructed by events is almost secondary. It’s good TV and it seems always to be on.

The possibility that ordinariness can succeed in grand fashion is what keeps us watching. She was, as I said, made for this.

I doubt that this by itself gets her to the White House, as it has a lot more to do with general popularity than political popularity and we shouldn’t confuse the two. But a lot of people will want to see how the story ends, and, if for no other reason, this will make her a phenomenon until the string plays itself out - whenever that is.

In the end, a presidential campaign may be just too seductive a story line for her, or her producers, to ignore.

Facing widespread ridicule (justifiable, given her history of ignorance, even if the what she said was understandable in context) over her North Korea gaffe, Sarah Palin has taken to Facebook -- it's either that or Fox News, the two places she can spin her lies and hurl her venom without being challenged -- to defend herself.

And she does that by revising history, claiming that she "corrected [herself] seconds after [her] slip-of-the-tongue" (she didn't) and attacking President Obama over his gaffes, as if somehow making fun of him lets her off the hook, as if he isn't a deep and serious thinker, which she most certainly is not.

Everyone makes mistakes. I said that in my post on Palin's gaffe. But that's not the issue. The issue is that Palin has proven to be, if I may be kind, an ignoramus. Time and time again, I wrote, what she reveals is that she doesn't think, let
alone think seriously, about anything other
than the marketing of the Palin brand. And her public utterances are nothing more than a string of shallow, self-aggrandizing talking points and ignorant assertions. She doesn't just make gaffes, she speaks without thinking, and
without ever having thought about what she's talking about. She's a mouth without a brain, and she can't hide that with all the lipstick in the world.

Responding to her Facebook post, Andrew Sullivan hit the bull's-eye, as he usually does with Palin:

This may be a smart-ass retort; it may be useful inoculation against a
potentially damaging gaffe; it may even be a well-researched blog-post,
but what it isn't is anything approaching the kind of character we
expect in a president. A simple respect for the office she seeks would
not reflect itself in these increasingly callow, sarcastic, cheap jibes
at a sitting president. But sadly, like so many now purporting to
represent conservatism, there is, behind the faux awe before the
constitution, a contempt for the restraint and dignity a polity's
institutions require from its leaders.

There is no maturity here; no self-reflection; no capacity even to
think how to appeal to the half of Americans who are already so appalled
by her trashy behavior and cheap publicity stunts. There is a meanness,
a disrespect, a vicious partisanship that, if allowed to gain more
power, would split this country more deeply and more rancorously than at
any time in recent years. And that's saying something.

America, simply, cannot afford Sarah Palin. Behind the smirky smile, behind the glittering winks, behind the phony all-American facade lurks an ugliness that is rotten to the core. She may try to keep it hidden and she may not even acknowledge its existence, but she just can't hide it. It's who she is.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Thanksgiving turkey

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes it's just what it looks like. Sometimes, when the fat man sucks on it, all hell is smiling.

The true story of Thanksgiving is how socialism failed,

said Rush to a caller, and President Obama is hiding that fact behind an honest account of history. No, that's not just a cigar, and of course we didn't get tobacco from the Indians -- what are you anyway, a communist?

Rush Limbaugh has long since run out of relevance, run out of ways to prove that president Obama is a Kenyan, anti-colonial (would he rather have him be a pro-colonial?), Muslim-Christian extremist who hates white people and is an avowed communist, atheist, trotskyite, racist, anti-Christ, ultra-liberal fascist. He's exhausted every epithet of every stripe -- and it seems he's now reduced to the even more pathetic state of turning the most mundane acts of traditional presidential sentiments and statements into fuel for his bonfires.

Lapel pins, terrorist fist bumps, leave that to the Girl Scouts. Rush Limbaugh is the Big League. What would have been, to anyone else and by anyone else, a tepid, ritual recognition of the long-standing American myth that the Plymouth colony was helped in adapting to the harsh climate and unfamiliar environment of 17th-century Wampanoag territory by some of the native people living there, the myth taught to schoolchildren for at least a century, filled with inaccuracies, and covered with a sloppy whitewash, turns in the cigar-sucking mind of Mr. Limbaugh from a third-grade pageant into a damnation of Mr. Obama. In the White House thanksgiving proclamation, the president says:

A beloved American tradition, Thanksgiving Day offers us the opportunity to focus our thoughts on the grace that has been extended to our people and our country. This spirit brought together the newly arrived Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe -- who had been living and thriving around Plymouth, Massachusetts for thousands of years -- in an autumn harvest feast centuries ago. This Thanksgiving Day, we reflect on the compassion and contributions of Native Americans, whose skill in agriculture helped the early colonists survive, and whose rich culture continues to add to our Nation's heritage. We also pause our normal pursuits on this day and join in a spirit of fellowship and gratitude for the year's bounties and blessings.

Jesus Christ. No, really -- Jesus Christ. this could be a Sunday Sermon preached somewhere in Middle America to a pastel congregation painted by Norman Rockwell. To the Palm Beach tycoon, however, it's occasion for a racist sneer about Indian casinos:

So, we were the invaders, we were incompetent idiots. We didn't know how to feed ourselves so they came along and showed us how and that's what Thanksgiving is all about.

Tell that to every school kid who had to make Pilgrim and Indian costumes complete with anachronistic flintlock blunderbusses and buckled shoes -- the America hating little bastards.

He says nothing about the Constitution in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation because he's got a problem with it,

Limbaugh continued to rant, and in the absence of any supporting information for it, failed also to tell us how a document written nearly 170 years afterward would be have any relevance to the Thanksgiving holiday other than one only obvious to a malicious, neurotic saboteur grasping for any wrench he can toss into the works of truth, honesty, and human decency.

But, of course, thanking a long-ago vanished tribe, acknowledging the cultural tributaries of our nation, and being grateful to whatever name one attaches to providence that our country ever came to be, is no more a qualification for venomous condemnation than saying good morning or asking what time it is. Failing to mention the Constitution of 1789 means no more than failing to mention the Emancipation Proclamation, and it says nothing about Obama or the United States of America founded so many years later and mostly by other people.

The only uniting element in this or any Limbaughean argument is the desperate attempt to make Obama an "America-hating" alien in order to make sure we continue making the same arrogant, ignorant mistakes we pridefully ignore. If the president came out against slavery and wife-beating we could be sure Rush would show us just how this was the one-way door to communism and the terrifying notion that Rush may have to earn an honest living. But Rush reveals so much with every word:

Somebody is toying with me. Somebody is seeing if they can get one past me. Somebody is trying to take advantage of me being not as focused on the day before Thanksgiving and falling for this prank.

That's right, it's not about an alliance of convenience between the Wampanoag and a ragged group of Englishmen who had suffered serious losses in the previous winter, it's about Rush. The president isn't following tradition, isn't being aware of history, isn't telling the truth, isn't being a general good guy in that love thy neighbor and let's work together and can't we all get along mold. He's trying to trick Rush, take advantage of Rush, and interfere with Rush's millions, with the profits of his betrayal of my country, the malignant, hyperbolic fabrications intended to sabotage everything good and decent and true.

No, it's true, Rush. You're right. The long, slow, and erratic movement toward freedom and responsibility and justice you're trying to retard is only something designed to get around you and your mission. There's nothing else behind it but an attempt to "get around" you, and Obama's not the only one. We're all trying to trick you, and in fact history is trying to trick you, the truth is trying to trick you, and, come to think of it, Satan himself is trying to trick you into thinking that's just a cigar.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Elephant Dung #5: Palin attacks elitist Bush "blue-bloods"

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

It's one thing to go after those Times-readin', Volvo-drivin', latte-sippin' liberal Democratic coastal elites, whether they exist or not, quite another to go after the plutocratic Republican elite, whether coastal or Texan, and, say what you will about the Bushes, they're a veritable Republican dynasty with two ex-presidents, a pile of up-and-coming relatives, and Jeb waiting in the wings for the right time to run.

That's an awful lot more than you can say about the Palins.

So it doesn't make much sense for less-then-one-term-governor Sarah Palin to target the Bushes, however much she may object to Barbara's suggestion that she "stay in Alaska." As she told Laura Ingraham in another friendly interview that allowed her to avoid having to face anything resembling a tough question that might require her to think (and fail):

I don't want to concede that we have to get used to this kind of thing,
because I don't think the majority of Americans want to put up with the
blue-bloods -- and I want to say it with all due respect because I love
the Bushes -- the blue-bloods who want to pick and choose their winners
instead of allowing competition.

Right, with all due respect.

Now, to be fair (and balanced), there's certainly something to be said for an anti-establishmentarian approach to party politics, and, here, Palin is merely expressing the view of much of the grassroots Tea Party base of the GOP. Obviously, it's not necessarily for the best when a party adopts a next-in-line approach to selecting nominees, or when a few dynasties dominate.

But one imagines that many in the pro-Bush Republican establishment are none too pleased than an upstart with little experience and a whole lotta ignorance, even a star like Palin, is challenging their authority.

Look for the establishment, such as it is, to continue to do everything it can to block Palin's ascendancy. Much of the country finds her repugnant, but it's the "blue-bloods" in her own party who really have it in for her.

(American) Thanksgiving 2010

To my American friends and family, to all of you Americans out there, and especially to my American editors, co-bloggers, and contributors here at The Reaction, as well as to my many American friends and acquaintances throughout the blogosphere, I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you're all having a wonderful day.

Go Lions. (The Patriots are a key Steelers rival.)

Go Saints. (I despise the Cowboys.)

Go... oh, the Bengals, I guess. (I despise both them and the Jets, but the Jets are another AFC rival for the Steelers this year and are ahead of them in the standings.)

Sarah Palin: "We've got to stand with our North Korean allies."

I'm sorry for not blogging the past few days. I've been a bit under the weather.

But I can always count on Sarah Palin to pull me back in...

Yes, Sarah Palin, the most amazing living American, who, appearing on Glenn Beck's radio show today -- where she knows she won't be asked any tough questions and where she can pretty much say whatever she wants without being challenged -- made a rather significant gaffe:

Co-host: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea? [...]

Palin: But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies. We're bound to by treaty –

Co-host: South Korean.

Palin: Eh, yeah. And we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes.

Now, Think Progress's Alex Seitz-Wald is right that "malapropisms can and should be forgiven for frequent public speakers." Everyone makes mistakes. Think about Joe Biden, for example, who frequently needs to extract his foot from his mouth.

But Biden's problem is that he is sometimes too honest (for a politician) or just says embarrassing things. In Palin's case, her problem is that she's lazy and unserious. Time and time again, what she reveals is that she doesn't think, let alone think seriously, about... well, about pretty much anything other than the marketing of the Palin brand.

Is it any wonder that Palin later accused of Couric "badgering" her, even though all Couric did was ask some fairly innocuous questions and, treading softly, give Palin every opportunity not to embarrass herself? Is it any wonder Palin recently said won't "waste time" with Couric if she runs in '12?